Veganism

Coconuts are mostly produced in Southeast Asia but are consumed a lot of Europe and North America. Coconuts grow on coconut trees, a type of palm tree, and can only grow in tropical and subtropical climates. Coconuts and products made from coconuts like coconut milk are plant-based. After all, coconuts grow on trees and can be produced without the use of animals. However, unfortunately monkeys are often used to help harvest coconuts which means coconuts often aren’t vegan.

Why are monkeys used?

According to the National Primate Research Center of the University of Wisconsin, a macaque can harvest between 500 and 1000 coconuts per day, while humans can only get around 80 in a day. By using animals, a farmer can harvest coconuts much faster and also get a much bigger harvest. As monkeys don’t need to be paid wages, this also saves a lot of labour costs. According to the National Primate Research Center, sometimes half of a family’s income is earned by the labour of macaques. In addition, climbing up trees to harvest the coconuts is hard and risky work, so by letting monkeys do this work for them, farmers reduce their own risk of getting injured.

How are the monkeys treated?

The monkeys, mostly macaques, are especially trained for their work and there are even special training schools for this purpose. At the schools, macaques are taught how to harvest the coconuts and how to select only ripe ones. The macaque are kept on a leash with an metal chain 24/7 and are often housed individually. This means they can’t behave naturally or have social contacts with members of their species. It’s also dangerous work for them with risk of injury and according to one trainer at a training school, the monkeys are sometimes forced to work and train so hard that they faint from exhaustion. After finishing their training, the macaques are sold for a lot of money to individual coconut farmers. This is an expensive investment, but as macaques usually live for around 40 years, the monkey can easily earn back this money over time.

While some monkeys at the training schools are born there, unfortunately many of them are captures from the wild. Often the mother monkeys are killed and the babies are taken to be trained from a young age to do this work. According to a macaque trainer from Thailand, the majority of the monkeys they train were caught in the wild, even though this is illegal. In Malaysia there are also training schools where farmers who already have a macaque can take them temporarily to do a coconut picking course. In addition, there are also farmers who train their macaques themselves.

Tourism and macaque training schools

In recent years, the training schools have also become more popular as a tourist destination. It gives tourists an opportunity to see these animals close-by and to see them perform tricks. This is mostly done because the training schools can earn much more money this way, than by only training the macaques without opening up to tourists. According to wildlife experts this is against the animal protection laws in Thailand, but it still happens a lot. Some training schools are even said to be full time illegal mini zoos for tourists where animals are trained to do tricks, using the pretext of being a training school as a cover story.

How often are monkeys used?

Unfortunately, there are no precise statistics of how many monkeys are used to harvest coconuts or how prevalent this practice is. According to the Vegan Society, most brands they’ve approached say they use coconuts harvested by humans. However, the Vegan Society does not mention which or how many brands they’ve approached. According to Edwin Wiek, animal protector in Thailand, about 30 percent of coconuts in Southern Thailand are harvested by monkeys. According to a coconut industry insider from Thailand, 99 percent of coconuts in Thailand are harvested by monkeys. Also in Malaysia monkeys are used, and according to the Malaysian Animal Welfare Association, they can’t guarantee the monkeys well-being because of lack of oversight. Also in other Southeast Asian countries, such as Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka, it’s known that monkeys are used by coconut farmers but there are no exact numbers of how often this happens. As using monkeys for labour is legal in most Southeast Asian countries, no one keeps track of the prevalence of this practice. Therefore, while it is certain that this happens on a considerable scale, it’s not known how many monkeys are used.

Environmental impact

The growing demand for coconut products has led to an increase in coconut production in recent years. Unfortunately, this also has a negative impact on the environment. Deforestation is common to make space for new coconut farms. Deforestation is not only necessary to keep up with the growing demand, but also because coconut trees start to produce less coconuts after a while. That’s why farmers try to keep planting new trees, to keep up production. Nowadays it’s becoming more usual for coconut trees to be grown as mono cultures. According to researchers from Stanford, this has a great impact on the ecosystems of tropical islands. This changes the vegetation, which leads to certain animals leaving the area and in the end the entire ecosystem changes. For example, researchers found that sea birds leave areas with coconut palms because they can’t nest in these new trees. When they’ve left, the soil quality is greatly reduced as sea birds feces no longer adds nutrients to the soil. According to the Dutch Voedingscentrum (food advisory committee), coconuts have a medium to high climate impact, especially because of deforestation and the high usage of pesticides to prevent insect plagues. In addition, the water usage for growing coconuts is also quite high.

Are coconuts vegan?

Coconut products are vegan when they are produced without using monkey labour. The problem is that it’s not mentioned on the package of a product whether this is the case and it’s hard if not impossible to find out whether a coconut product has been made without using monkeys. Below you can find a list of brands that say they don’t use monkeys for the harvesting of their coconuts. However, it’s unclear how reliable this list is, no brand admits that they use or could be using coconuts harvested by monkeys. In addition, many of the brands in the list use coconuts from Thailand, while someone from the Thai coconut industry said 99 percent of coconuts there are harvested by monkeys. Furthermore, most coconuts are grown by small farmers. It is therefore extremely hard and pretty much impossible for companies to be sure none of their many farmers keeps one or several monkeys. Therefore they mostly seem to rely on the farmer’s word and in most cases do not seem to have any policy specifically against their farmers using monkeys. However, as one in every twenty supermarket products contains a coconut derived ingredient, avoiding all coconut products can be difficult.

Companies that say their coconut products are not made with the help of monkey labour:

3 Buddhas Coconut Water

Abbot Kinney’s

Alaffia

Alpro

Amy & Brian

Aunt Patty’s

Ayam

Artisana Organics

Better Body Foods

Big Tree Farms

Bio today/Smaak

Biona

Califa farms

Carrington Farms

Coconut Bliss Coconut Magic (Australia)

Coconut Secret

Daiya

De witte Parel

Dr. Bronner’s

Earth Circle Organics

Earth Conscious

Fairtrade Original

Essential Trading Company

Harmless Harvest

Kaskade

La Tourangelle Artisan Oils

Maison Orphee

Mama Nature (Aldi)

Naked Coconuts

Native Pacific “Banaban” (Queensland)

Nutiva

Ojio (Ultimate Superfoods)

Organicfarm

Sanso-Boeki LLC (Japan)

So Delicious

Silk

Spectrum Organics

Trader Joe’s

Tropical Traditions

Vita Coco

(Note: While these companies have themselves said that they do not use monkey labour, this is hard to check and enforce, and in addition most of these companies don’t have any official company statements or supplier requirements that specifically state that using monkey labour or other animal labour is forbidden. Therefore I’d like to note that there is no 100% guarantee that none of their suppliers uses monkey labour. However, if you do decide to consume coconut products, these companies are probably the best option)

Companies that did not give a (clear) answer to the question of whether they (may) use monkey labour and therefore it’s unclear whether they use monkey labour:

In the Netherlands, the UK and many other countries, there is a 3 R’s policy for animal testing. The 3 R’s stand for replacement, reduction and refinement. This means that we should try to replace tests on animals as much as possible, reduce the number of animals involved for each experiment, and make tests as animal friendly as possible. While the principles of the 3 R’s were already thought out by two British biologists in 1959, the idea only became popular in the 80s. Nowadays, researchers usually have to take the 3 R’s into consideration when making a research plan and they play a role in deciding whether an experiment receives a permit or not. Luckily in recent years many new technologies have developed that make replacing animal testing increasingly possible.

Growing cells

A lot of experiments can now be done without using animals by simply growing the necessary cells. With stem cells it’s possible to grow tissue from different body parts of both humans and other animals. With this method, a kidney or a heart can be grown, or a piece of skin tissue. This way it’s possible to test whether a certain medicine is poisonous for kidneys for example. By growing skin or cornea tissue, we can test how skin or eyes react to a certain product. Often these tests are more reliable than toxicity tests on animals, because animals often have a slightly different skin than humans. This explains why occasionally, a product that did not cause irritation during tests on rabbits, can cause skin irritation in humans. Thanks to this new development it is therefore not only possible to test the safety of products without animals, but also in a more reliable way.

In 2017 scientists even managed to grow an entire mice embryo from stem cells. This method can be used to study the development of embryos. These embryos can’t grow to become real babies as they can’t get the nutrients they’d normally get from their mother. This way embryos can be studied without needing to keep and breed animals. Researchers expect that in the future it will also become possible to grown human embryos this way for research.

Especially growing human tissue has many advantages because it increases the reliability of the research results. Unfortunately, lab-grown cells and tissues aren’t used much yet because they aren’t available on a sufficiently big scale. Skin tissue is often grown using cells from pieces of skin that doctors remove, for example at plastic surgery. Only with permission and cooperation of both the doctor and patient can this tissue be used to grow tissue and replace animal testing. Unfortunately, this method doesn’t produce anywhere near enough tissue yet, so in the future a solution for this problem could greatly reduce the number of animals needed for experiments. Luckily, it’s also possible to grow animal skin and other cells, so growing a skin that is quite similar to human skin, such as pig skin, could also be a solution.

Research on humans

Due to new technologies it’s increasingly possible to test things using humans instead. For example, as we now have better scans, it’s possible to study organs and brain activity in humans. This way we don’t need animals to learn more about how the human body works. In addition, medicines can also sometimes be tested on humans by using micro doses. This way the person receives an extremely small dose, which means the medicine won’t have any effect on the body, but the reaction in individual cells can be observed.

Chips

Nowadays there are also new technologies like ‘lab on a chip’, ‘human on a chip’ and ‘organ on a chip’. On these chips are different cells that are connected to each other through tiny threads and can exchange substances and signals. This way the exchange and cooperation between cells and their reaction on certain products can be tested. There is for example already a chip that can test the effect of medicines on kidneys. In a way these chips are a kind of miniature laboratory in which everything takes place on the chip and where miniature versions of tissue and organs can be made and safely used for testing. In the future, it is expected to become possible to imitate an entire human body on a chip. This technology is already being used, but especially offers promising prospects for the future that may be able to replace even more experiments on animals. Another advantage of this technique is that human cells are used, which increases the reliability of the results.

Smart data systems and databases

There is an increasing number of databases in which information about the human body and diseases is stored. With smart data systems, this information and information from previous research can be used for new research. In addition, there is also a lot of progress in computer simulations that can make predictions. By combining information from different sources, models can be made and in some cases new experiments on animals are then no longer required. It’s also important that as much information as possible is shared and that the results from studies with animal testing that had negative results are also published and saved to prevent unnecessary repetition of the same experiments.

Using dead animals

Sometimes it’s also possible to conduct experiments on dead animals instead. In some cases this is already happening, because some animals are bred and killed so that their body parts can be used in experiments. A better alternative would be to use animals that are already dead, so causing extra suffering by breeding and killing animals is no longer necessary. In addition, sometimes living animals can also be replaced by dead ones. For example, in the past (and in some countries still nowadays) it was normal to test the safety of new products by putting some in the eyes of living rabbits. Nowadays in the Netherlands, the eyes of chickens killed at slaughterhouses are used for this purpose. This works just as well, and no extra animals have to be bred and killed for these experiments. Of course, using animal parts from slaughterhouses isn’t ideal and could be problematic in the future when there hopefully won’t be any slaughterhouses anymore. Still, this could reduce the suffering of many animals in the short term and in the future it may also be possible to use animals or even humans that have died of a natural cause.

Other solutions

Besides using new technologies, there are also other ways to reduce the number of tests on animals. The Dutch Rathenau Instituut also proposes the 3 B’s: better research, better answers to questions that are relevant to society and better laws. The first two mainly deal with asking different kinds of questions and a new perspective on health. In addition, laws also play a big role as it’s now often still compulsory to test new substances and products on animals. It also regularly takes a very long time before alternatives to animal testing are approved. By changing this, it’ll be possible to replace animal testing much faster.

In addition, it also remains important to encourage alternatives. Not only by researching more possible alternatives, but also by using the ones we already have as much as possible. In order to do this, it’s important to convince researchers, who have often spent most of their career doing animal testing, that working with these alternatives instead is important and by encouraging them to embrace this change.

There are many reasons why animal testing is pretty problematic. In this article I discuss some of them.

Many unused animals

A lot of animals are bred for animal testing, but in the end aren’t used in any experiment. Often more animals are bred than are necessary for a specific experiment, as there always need to be extra animals available in case there’s a problem. It may seem like a good thing that these animals aren’t used in experiments, but they still live in captivity under pretty bad circumstances. In addition, after a while they have to be killed when it’s sure they won’t be needed for experiments, as it’s a legal requirement to reduce animal suffering as much as possible. This includes killing these animals and regularly replacing them with newly bred animals for new tests. In addition, for some research the test animals have to have certain characteristics, which means the bred animals that don’t meet these requirements are useless and are therefore killed. For example, for some studies, only female animals are needed, which means half of the animals being bred (all males) are just an unnecessary byproduct. These animals are often killed quite soon after birth. This is a legal requirement to prevent ‘unnecessary suffering’. In the Netherlands around half a million animals bred for experiments are killed every year without having been used in any research (on top of the the half a million animals that are used in experiments).

Alternatives often aren’t used much

While for some experiments there aren’t any alternatives yet, the alternatives that we do already have often aren’t being used nearly as much as they could. This often has to do with money and the attitude of the researchers. Most researchers have been trained for years in testing on animals and often have a lot of experience in this. Many of them don’t see a problem in using animals in experiments and aren’t very open to new technologies that can replace animal testing. This resistance to new alternatives from within means that in some experiments alternatives could be used but still aren’t being used. In addition, money also plays a role. In some cases alternatives can be considerably more expensive or require an initial investment in equipment. Researchers may also need to learn how to use these alternatives or new facilities are needed to work with these alternatives or to produce them on a sufficiently large scale. Therefore, it’s not surprising that integrating known alternatives is a very slow process, which means many animals suffer unnecessarily.

Inefficient regulations and lack of cooperation

The number of animals used in experiments could already be lowered considerably if countries would cooperate more. Now, new medicines and other new products or ingredients are being tested separately in many different countries. Nowadays, most European countries work together, meaning products only need to be tested once (which still involves a lot of animals), but most other countries have regulations stating that every new product needs to be tested in that country, regardless of whether the product has already been found to be safe through those same tests in other countries. Because of this, many products (medicines, cleaning products etc) are being tested in many different countries, each time requiring a big group of animals as the safety of a product can only be established by testing on a considerable group of individuals. Therefore, many animals could be spared if there would be more cooperation and agreements between countries so redoing the same tests in different places would no longer be necessary.

The results are usually not useful for people

Many different species of animals are used in animal testing. However, translating these results into useful implications for the human body or human situation remains problematic. To improve this situation, genetically modified animals are increasingly being bred and used for testing. By manipulating the DNA, animals can for example be made more sensitive to illnesses that they naturally don’t get or don’t get so easily. However, it still remains that results from animal testing often aren’t applicable to humans and therefore regularly aren’t very helpful in gaining more insights or developing medicines.

There are many animal testing rules. According to EU regulations, companies and institutions can’t test on animals without getting special permits. They require both a permit for the institution and separate permits for every new research that involves testing on animals. A special committee reviews every request for animal testing and judges the necessity of these experiments.

EU regulations also state that animals used for experiments need to be treated and looked after as well as possible. Pain should be minimized and anesthesia should be used whenever possible when this won’t have disturb the experiment. Unfortunately, because of the way this may effect the experiment, anesthesia isn’t used much. Animals are also required to have housing that is appropriate for their species and where they can behave as naturally as possible. This can be done by giving animals plenty of space, the right climate (temperature, light etc) and by designing the cages specifically to be suitable to a specie’s habits.

This all sounds pretty good, but in reality these rules don’t work very well. They’re quite similar to rules for animal agriculture where unnecessary harm should also be prevented and animals should be housed in a suitable environment and treated well. Unfortunately, these rules are open to many different interpretations that leave a lot of room for unnecessary suffering. With animal testing, as with animal agriculture, animal welfare is limited by the budget, which means a lot of space and good living conditions aren’t affordable. In addition, it’s hard to measure objectively how much stress and pain animals experience and to judge whether this is preventable or acceptable. Even under the best of circumstances and with the best of intentions, it’s not possible to house and keep animals for testing in a way that is free from pain, discomfort and stress. Unfortunately, practicalities such as limited money, space and time mean that the way animals are housed and treated is far from ideal. In addition, there’s always the pain and suffering during the actual experiment.

Furthermore, the animals are almost always killed at the end of the experiment and this needs to be done in a humane way. Some are put down with lethal injection which is arguably quite humane, but other methods definitely are not. Gassing, breaking the neck or beheading are also common ways to kill animals used in experiments. We all know that gassing is far from a painless death and with the other methods it’s doubtful they are humane, especially when procedures like beheading won’t always go well at the first attempt. In the Netherlands, gassing is considered ‘light pain/lack of comfort’ by the industry itself, so when they consider that to be only mild suffering, we can only guess how much suffering is caused by moderate or high pain procedures.

Most animals that are used for animal testing are specifically bred for this purpose. In the Netherlands, most animals for testing are bred by the research centers themselves (71 percent) while the rest are bred by special breeding farms or taken from the wild.

Research on wild animals can happen in two ways. Sometimes, research is done in their natural environment, while in other cases animals are taken away for research in laboratories. In 2015 about 10.000 animals were taken from the wild for experiments in Dutch laboratories, while more than 20.000 animals were studied and tested in their natural environment. On average, about 3 percent of animals for experiments in a laboratory were taken from the wild for this purpose.

Animals that are usually kept as pets, such as cats and dogs, are also used in tests. However, researchers aren’t allowed to use cats or dogs that have been kept as pets. When these animals are used, they’re specifically bred for this purpose. Sometimes it can happen that an animal becomes a pet after having been used in experiments. However, this doesn’t happen often, as most animals die during experiments or are killed afterwards so their insides can be studied. Dead pets are sometimes used for tests, but only when the owner has donated his/her pet for this purpose.

27 percent of animals that are used in tests are genetically modified animals. Mostly these are genetically modified mice. By using genetic modification, it’s possible to learn more about certain diseases and the link between a disease and certain genes. In addition, it’s often important to have a big group of animals that is genetically identical or to use genetic modification to create animals with specific diseases or who are more likely to develop a certain disease. This makes it easier to get enough animals with a certain disease to develop and test new treatments.

Occasionally it’s possible to use the same animal in more than one experiment. In 2015 there were 8500 animals in the Netherlands that were used in more than one experiment. However, most of the time that isn’t possible, as animals die during the experiment or are killed afterwards for further research.

What species are used?

Tests on great apes are no longer allowed in the EU. Tests on endangered and protected species are also not allowed unless this is absolutely necessary and no other animals can be used instead. In this case, a special request can be granted to use these species.

Laws regarding animals for testing only apply to vertebrates, such as mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and fish. Invertebrates (with the exception of cephalopods) are not included. This means that invertebrates such as snails, worms and insects, can be used in experiments, but they’re not protected against unnecessary harm and researchers don’t need to follow the rules that do apply to vertebrates regarding humane treatment etc. These animals are also usually not counted in statistics of animal testing.

Another group of animals that aren’t counted for the statistics and aren’t protected by animal testing laws are unborn fetuses. When these are eventually born, the fetus is protected by law, but fetuses that are killed before they are born aren’t protected. This means that certain experiments that aren’t allowed on animals, can be performed on fetuses. Especially a lot of experiments with genetic modification are done using fetuses who are killed prematurely. For example, chicken fetuses are used to create Frankenstein-like creatures through genetic modification. As long as these animals are killed before they’re born, this is allowed.

Mice and rats

Mice and rats are the most commonly used animals for testing, both in the Netherlands and worldwide. About 70 percent of animals used in the Netherlands are mice and rats. At special breeders, it’s possible to get hundreds of different types of mice and rats, including many genetically modified ones for specific purposes. These animals are mostly used for toxicity and safety tests and to produce antibodies. In addition, they’re used in pretty much all other types of scientific research where animals are used. All types of diseases can be given to mice and rats, from cancer, lung problems, Parkinsons and blood poisoning, to addiction, autism, broken bones and burn wounds. Mental and psychological problems can also be studied using mice and rats. In order to do that, the animals are isolated, traumatised, scared, prevented from sleeping or starved to get them into the desired state of mind. Then their behaviour and reaction to certain stimuli can be observed, sometimes combined with information from implanted electrodes.

Primates

Tests on great apes are only done outside of the EU now, for example in the US. In Europe, around ten thousand other primates are used in experiments, including a few hundred in the Netherlands. About 67 percent of tests on primates in Europe are done to test the safety of pharmaceutical products, for example if certain substances cause psychological problems, influence blood clotting or are damaging to pregnant women. 33 percent of primates are used in other tests to learn more about the body, such as brain research or to study certain diseases. A lot of primates are bought directly, or through traders, from China. As it’s known that in China primates are sometimes taken from the wild for this purpose, it can’t be guaranteed that some of the primates used for these tests actually came from the wild rather than being bred for animal testing.

Rodents

A wide variety of rodents are used in experiments, especially rabbits, but also guinea pigs and hamsters. These animals are mostly used for toxicity and safety tests. As rabbits reproduce quickly, they’re often used to test the effect of new products on pregnant rabbits and their newborns. In addition, they’re also used to make antibodies. In order to do this, rabbits are injected with a certain disease and the antibodies that their bodies produce are taken from their blood to make medicines. Hamsters are used in a variety of studies about diseases, such as atherosclerosis and cholesterol related problems. To do this, hamsters are given a very unhealthy diet and are then killed after a few weeks so their organs can be examined. Another group of hamsters is given a normal diet and still killed after a few weeks so their organs can be compared to the unhealthy diet group.

Dogs & cats

Dogs are used for toxicity and safety testing but also for studying certain diseases. Especially for research about cardiovascular disease and heart problems dogs are often used. For example, with surgery, heart problems are created by cutting off veins or implementing a pacemaker to influence the heartbeat.

Cats are also used in experiments. These are usually studies regarding movement or sensory tests. For example, surgery is used to damage the spine to see how this influences the movements of the limbs and in other studies ears or eyes are damaged or kittens are blindfolded from birth to see how this effects the brain. At the end of the study the cats are often killed to further study the brain.

Farm animals

Farm animals such as cows, horses, poultry, pigs, sheep and goats are also used in experiments. Part of these tests are meant to help increase the production of animal products, for example by researching animal diseases that occur on farms or by studying the effects of certain supplements, diets or the influence of specific genes that could help increase production.

These animals are also used for other purposes. For example, goats are used for the production of antibodies and for research regarding joints. To do this, the cartilage in joints is damaged to create an infection and to help them develop osteoarthritis. Then the goats are killed so the progress of this illness can be studied in detail. Sheep are also used for different types of research, such as studies for cardiovascular disease or blood poisoning. To study blood poisoning, feces is injected into the belly to create a bad infection, which causes the body to slowly stop functioning.

Pigs are mostly used for studying cardiovascular diseases and testing medical devices such as artificial heart valves. Pigs are also used in experiments with xenotransplantation, where organs or tissue are transplanted into other species. Nowadays, genetic modification is sometimes used to make pigs even more suitable for that. Up to now, there hasn’t been much success in xenotransplantation, as the bodies usually reject the tissue or organ from another species but researchers keep trying. The recipients of the donor material from pigs are usually primates. In addition, mini pigs are also used for research. These pigs were specifically bred in the 60s for animal testing, as these pigs require less space and are therefore cheaper and more practical to keep for experiments. Mini pigs are mostly used for toxicity and safety tests and sometimes also for other types of research.

In addition to the animals mentioned above, there are many more species that are used for animal testing, such as llamas, ferrets and other mammals, as well as many different species of fish, birds, reptilians and amphibians.

Worldwide about 115 million animals are used for animal testing every year. 12 million of those tests take place in Europe, of which about 4 million in the UK and half a million in the Netherlands. In addition to these animals that are used in animal testing, there are also a lot of animals that are bred for animal testing but are killed without ever being used. The real number of victims is therefore a lot higher. In the coming few blogs we discuss all important aspects of animal testing, with in the first blog, the different goals that animals are used for. Please note that the percentages and numbers discussed below describe the Dutch situation so percentages may differ in other countries.

Animals for scientific research

The most important goal, for which more than 50 percent of animals in the Netherlands are used, is research regarding the human body and physical and mental diseases in humans. For this research, animals are given the disease that researchers want to study and then the animal is usually observed and sometimes potential interventions are tested. To make sure animals get these diseases, genetic modification is sometimes used to make sure the animals are born with a specific disease or naturally have a huge chance of developing a certain disease like cancer. Pregnant animals can also be treated with injections to make sure their babies won’t be healthy. For other health problems, healthy animals are bred and then later injected with a disease or inflicted with wounds or other bodily damage. Surgery can be used to damage organs, bones can be broken or skin can be exposed to fire to create burn wounds.

In order to study mental diseases and psychological problems, animals are traumatised to help them develop depressions, PTSD or anxiety disorders. This can be done by methods such as using electric shocks, keeping them in isolation from birth or by depriving them from sufficient food, water and/or sleep. In addition, injections or methods to damage the brain can also be used to cause psychological problems.

Testing medicines

About 33 percent of animal testing is done to develop medicines and vaccines and to test their safety. To test the effect of medicines, an animal is given the disease in question by using genetic modification, injecting them with the disease or other ways as explained in the previous paragraph. Then they are administered the medicine and the reaction is observed and the body later examined. In addition, medicines are also tested for side effects for which healthy individuals can also be used.

Tests for animal purposes

About 12 percent of animal testing is to study animal diseases and animal welfare. Most of these tests are done for animal agriculture. These include research regarding animal diseases, developing medicines for farm animals and pets and researching the best ways to keep animals in enclosures and living in close proximity as healthy as possible. In addition, another 0,5 percent of animal testing is done to test animal feed and for other animal-related purposes.

Toxicity and safety tests

In most countries new substances by law have to be tested on animals before they can be sold. Nowadays, most of this is arranged at a European level by the EFSA, but in many countries outside of the EU every country tests every new substance themselves, which means a new substance is tested over and over again in different parts of the world. About 7 percent of tests involving animals are to test the safety of new substances. It depends on the type of substance or product and what it will be used for how it’s tested. Animals can be forced to swallow the substance, forced to breath it in, get it rubbed on their skin or in their eyes, get it injected into their bodies or pushed into a body orifice. Usually different doses and a significant number of animal from different species are used to get a reliable result. In some countries, the LD50 is determined for every new substance, which is the doses of the substance at which half of the animals die immediately because of acute poisoning. As you can imagine, to find the LD50, a large group of animals is necessary to experiment with different doses and to get a reliable result. In the Netherlands this method isn’t used anymore, but other tests are done to test the toxicity and safety of new substances and products. After doing these types of tests, animals are almost always killed so their bodies can be examined for any internal damage.

Animals for education

Around 4 percent of animal testing is done for educational purposes. For some studies, animals are specifically bred and killed so students can study the animal’s anatomy, such as vet students that have to practise on an animal. Students of certain majors also have to practise animal testing so that in the future they’ll be capable and certified to do independent research that involves animal testing. In some countries, it’s possible to donate your dead pet to these educational purposes so that students can practice on them and less individuals have to be specifically bred and killed for education.

Animal testing by the military

The military also uses animals to test new weapons but not much is known about this. In the Netherlands, they have been used to test nerve gas and sulfur mustard, but it’s not known what other tests these animals are or have been used for.

Animal testing for cosmetics

Testing cosmetics on animals has been banned in the EU since 2013. This does not only include make-up, but also products like shampoo, tooth paste and soap, and new ingredients for this type of product. In theory cosmetics that have been tested on animals since 2013 are also banned from being sold in the EU, but unfortunately, this ban doesn’t work very well. A lot of products that are being tested on animals are still for sale in the EU. This is because many brands test their products on animals abroad and go through cruelty free testing in the EU. By submitting their product for cruelty free testing in the EU, these products can still be sold here. In addition, there are also brands that don’t test on animals themselves, but allow an external party to test their products on animals. This is the case for all cosmetics brands that sell their products in China, as in China it’s mandatory for foreign cosmetics to be tested on animals before products can be sold there. As the brand doesn’t perform the animal tests itself, these brands can still claim to be ‘cruelty free’ and can be bought in the EU. Furthermore, cosmetics companies are allowed to use new substances that have recently been tested on animals in their products, as long as these new substances haven’t been tested specifically for cosmetics. If the safety of a new substance has been tested for medicines or cleaning products for example, the ingredient can be used without violating the EU ban.

Animals for body parts

Some animals are bred and killed for their body parts. In these cases, the animal isn’t used for experiments while he was alive. They are just killed and the body part that is needed for an experiment (organs, tissue, fluids) are taken. The EU doesn’t include these animals in its calculation of the number of individuals used in animal testing or in most other documents related to animal testing. In the Netherlands, however, these animals are included and they make up about 10 percent of the animals used for experiments. As many countries don’t see these animals as part of animal testing, the number of animals worldwide used for experiments could be a lot higher when including those killed before the beginning of the experiment (both those used for their body parts and those bred for animal testing and killed and discarded because they weren’t needed).

Click here for part 2 about what species are used for animal testing and where they come from.

Truffles are a type of fungi that grows on the roots of trees. There are many different types of truffles, such as black and white truffles, Chinese truffles, summer truffles and winter truffles. In the wild, they’re mostly eaten by squirrels and wild boar. Squirrels also play an important role in spreading truffles to new areas. There are two ways to get truffles: by finding them in the wild or by cultivating them on plantations. As the demand for truffles is quite high, truffles can be sold for a lot of money. Especially big, rare truffles are sometimes sold for tens of thousands of euros. Theoretically, truffles are vegan as they’re not animals. So are truffles vegan? As animals are usually used by people to find them, many people regard truffles as not vegan.

Finding truffles

People have been looking for truffles in the wild for centuries. Unfortunately, they’re quite difficult to find as they grow underground. That is why dogs or hogs are used to find truffles.

With hogs, usually only the females are used. This is because the scent of truffles is apparently similar to the scent of male hogs. Therefore, it’s easier to make the females look for this scent. Nowadays, hogs aren’t used much anymore, because they often eat the truffles before humans can stop them, even though they’re usually held on a leash. In addition, it’s also more difficult to look after hogs and to transport them to potential truffle sites. Another downside of using hogs is that they often start digging, which can damage the mycelium in the soil. This is a part of the truffle that is not taken. When the mycelium is badly damaged, no new truffles can grow there. That is why the usage of hogs to find truffles was banned in Italy in 1985.

Nowadays, dogs are mostly used to find truffles, especially the Lagotto Romagnolo. These dogs are trained from a young age to find truffles and some are even send to special truffle training schools. It usually takes about 4 years to train a truffle dog and this costs a considerable amount of money. For most owners, this isn’t a problem as truffles can be sold for a lot of money so this money can be earned back easily. Dogs are usually allowed to walk around freely when looking for truffles as there’s no risk of them eating the truffles. Unfortunately, because of the high competition between truffle dogs and their owners, it regularly happens that truffle dogs are poisoned by competitors.

Truffle cultivation

Truffles are only one part of a fungus. The fungus also has mycelium reaching further into the soil and often located around the roots of the tree. There, it looks for water and minerals in the ground and gives these to the tree. In return, the tree gives part of its sugar to the fungus. This way, these two species live together in symbiosis. Truffles can grow on a variety of different trees, but they have to compete with other types of fungi.

Truffles can be cultivated by planting suitable trees. To make sure that truffles win from other competing fungi, it’s important to make sure the soil is ideal for truffle growth, by for example making sure it has the right acidity. When this is done well, truffles will gradually develop on the roots. It often takes about 7 to 10 years for the first truffles to be ready for harvest. The soil of the truffle plantation needs to be checked regularly and kept in ideal truffle conditions with irrigation and protection against animals like wild boar. When a plantation is managed well, new truffles can continue to grow for several decades.

The fact that truffles can be cultivated was first discovered at the beginning of the 19th century and started in France as ‘trufficulture’. This was first done by taking small saplings near truffle trees and moving them to plantations. Later it turned out that it’s also possible to just start with seeds. At the end of the 19th century there were already thousands of acres with trees for truffle cultivation.

At the beginning of the 20th century a lot of truffle plantations stopped working because of the first and second world wars. In the last 30 years, new attempts have begun to start producing truffles on a large scale. According to Michel Courvoisier, director of the French federation of truffle cultivators, about 80 to 90 percent of all truffles in France come from truffle plantations. Truffle cultivation is also going on in many other countries, such as the United Kingdom, United States, Spain, Sweden, Italy, Chili and South Africa. Since the 90s truffle cultivation has also begun in Australia. In New Zealand the first plantations were set up at the beginning of the 21st century and they now number over a hundred. Unfortunately, there aren’t any statistics about how many truffles originate from truffle plantations worldwide. José Barbarin, manager of the biggest truffle plantation in the world estimated in 2006 that about 15 to 25 percent of all truffles come from plantations, but this has likely increased since then.

Unfortunately, dogs and hogs are also used at truffle plantations to find the exact location of the truffles and to find out whether the truffles have grown yet.

Truffle oil

Truffle oil used to be made of olive oil and truffles. This is very expensive to make. Therefore, most truffle oil in shops today doesn’t contain any real truffle. The truffle scent and flavour are made by adding synthetic versions of the chemicals that are also present in real truffles. This means that truffle oil is almost always vegan.

Every year more than 50 million animals are bred and killed for the production of fur in the EU. Worldwide, more than one billion rabbits and 100 million other animals are killed for this purpose every year. About 90 percent of fur is produced on fur farms. While more and more people are against fur farming, in recent years an increasing number of fur products are sold with a faux fur label, misleading consumers. The fur industry is unfortunately still very profitable.

Animals in the fur industry often find it hard to adjust to live in a cage and are kept in horrible conditions. Animals are forced to live in small wire cages until it’s time to be killed. Health problems are common, such as untreated infections and wounds, missing limbs, cannibalism, dead animals left to rot between living animals and lack of (clean) drinking water. These animals are often scared and show disturbing behaviour as they’re unable to behave naturally in their cages. In the end, they’re often either gassed or electrocuted. Gassing takes quite a long time and is very painful. Electrocuting animals is also quite problematic, as it’s risky and when not done correctly it can cause a lot of pain as well. That’s why electrocuting foxes is now forbidden in some places such as New York.

In some countries, breeding animals for the fur industry is no longer allowed. One of these countries is the United Kingdom, which banned fur farming in England in Wales in 2000 and in the rest of the UK in 2002. Several other EU countries are in the process of banning fur farms. The Netherlands still has 160 mink farms, killing 6 million mink every year, but this will be banned in 2024. Some countries like Germany continue to increase welfare regulations for fur farms, making it harder to them to continue existing.

Mink

The American mink is bred on a large scale for its fur. They’re kept in small, empty cages and mostly get waste from slaughterhouses as food. They’re usually killed by gassing. Undercover footage in the Netherlands from Animal Rights showed that mink are often treated brutally when being thrown into the gas chamber. In addition, footage showed that it takes quite long for them to be gassed, which means they suffer a lot.

Rabbits

Rabbits are bred the most for the fur industry, in total more than one billion rabbits every year. Rabbit fur is often used for cheaper clothing, as it’s cheaper than most other types of fur. Many people believe rabbit fur is not so bad, as it’s thought to be a byproduct of meat production. Unfortunately, that’s not true. Many rabbits are bred and killed for meat (more than 340 million in the EU alone), but this is another breed of rabbit. Rabbits for meat are bred to grow fast and are slaughtered when they’re only 10 weeks old and their fur has not developed properly yet. The fur of these rabbits is usually not used in the fur industry. Another one billion rabbits of other breeds are bred for fur. These rabbits are kept for longer, usually about half a year, to make sure their fur is at its best. As they live longer, their meat is not as tasty and is often not used for human consumption.

In addition, there is a third type of rabbit that’s bred to make angora wool. This wool comes from special rabbits that have very long hair. Angora rabbits have been bred by humans to increase the length of the hair and can’t survive in the wild. The wool is used a lot to make clothing and is mostly produced in China. Usually the female rabbits are used to make this product, as the male rabbits produce less wool. For this reason, most of the male angora rabbits are killed shortly after birth. To get angora wool, rabbits don’t need to be killed, but their fate is still horrible. The hair is literally pulled out of their skin, which is extremely painful and often results in the rabbits screaming in agony. This happens every three months for about two to five years, when the rabbits are slaughtered.

Raccoon dog

Raccoon dogs are slightly bigger than raccoons and live in forests near water. The fur of these animals is often used on coats. Raccoon dogs are mostly bred in Scandinavia and Asia and their lives are filled with suffering. Research in Finland showed that at raccoon dogs at fur farms regularly miss limbs and have untreated infected wounds. In China, film footage showed that raccoon dogs are sometimes skinned alive.

Cats and dogs

Every year, around 2 million cats and dogs are bred and killed by the fur industry, most of them in China. These animals are often kept in small cages in horrible conditions. Even though it’s illegal, undercover footage has shown that these cats and dogs are sometimes skinned alive.

The EU has banned the import of cat and dog fur since 2008. Unfortunately, this hasn’t stopped the sale of these types of fur in Europe. Fur from cats and dogs that have not been killed specifically for their fur can still be imported legally (so fur from cats and dogs that have been killed for meat instead those coming from fur farms). In addition, it’s also very hard to stop cat and dog fur from being imported. Customs doesn’t have the time and capacity to check all fur items and it’s impossible to find out if a product contains cat or dog fur without doing a DNA test or microscope research. Therefore, it still regularly happens that products containing cat or dog fur are sold within the EU. Sometimes these products don’t contain labels saying what type of fur it is, but it’s also sold with false labels (saying it’s fur from another label) or even with labels saying its faux fur. Therefore, even faux fur isn’t always safe to buy.

Interestingly, the import of dog leather is allowed in the EU without any restrictions. It’s not known what products this is used for and it doesn’t need to be mentioned on the product what type of leather is used. Therefore, leather items in the EU can be made from dog leather and only a DNA test can reveal whether this is the case or not. Dog leather is regularly used to make gloves and for leather patches on clothing and accessories.

Coyotes

Coyotes are not bred at fur farms. They’re predators that live in North America. They’re mainly hunted for their fur, as it’s quite profitable. Every year in the US and Canada almost half a million coyotes are killed. Most of them are caught with a leg-hold trap, which consists of two metal parts coming together, trapping the animal’s leg. It often takes a long time before a hunter finally comes to kill the animal, sometimes several days. During this time the animal suffers a lot and sometimes even dies of hunger or thirst before the hunter arrives. In addition, animals sometimes manage to escape from the traps, but as they are badly injured, sometimes even having lost a leg, they mostly die later anyway.

Another problem with leg-hold traps is that other animals often get caught in them. It’s been estimated that for every coyote that’s caught, one to four other animals die in the leg-hold trap. Sometimes these include endangered species. Leg-hold traps are banned in Europe since 1995, because of the animal suffering they cause. Interestingly, fur from animals caught with leg-hold traps can be sold in the EU and an estimated 75% of all leg-hold trap fur is sold in Europe. Therefore, Europe ironically still greatly contributes to the continuation of this cruel hunting practice by supporting the fur industry.

Chinchillas

Chinchillas are often bred for their fur. They’re kept in small cages and are known to become scared and aggressive in captivity. It happens regularly that they harm themselves or others and even cannibalism isn’t uncommon. Mothers often kill their own babies, which together with other problems has led to more than 25 percent of young chinchillas dying in fur farms. Chinchillas are mostly bred in China and Russia.

Seals

Seals are not bred for their fur, but hunted. Every year, a few hundred thousand seals are killed for fur, mostly in Canada, Greenland and Namibia. Seals are also hunted on a smaller scale in Norway, but luckily the government there has stopped subsidizing seal hunts in 2015, which led to a decrease in seal hunts. Especially young seals are often killed and they’re mostly clubbed to death or shot. Unfortunately, hunters usually don’t check whether the animal is dead, which according to vets regularly leads to seals being skinned alive. Furthermore, wounded seals are often left behind.

In Canada and Greenland, seal hunts aren’t profitable anymore and can only continue to exists because of the millions of dollars worth of subsidies from the governments. In Namibia, it’s still profitable, but less profitable than seal tourism there. An increasing number of countries, including the US and Russia, have banned the import of seal products in recent years, which has greatly decreased the number of seals being killed. The EU also has a seal import ban, but this excludes seal products from indigenous people in Greenland and Canada. In Canada, indigenous people only have small-scale hunts, but in Greenland, most of the inhabitants are indigenous people and many of them hunt seals for a living, killing 80.000 seals every year. Unfortunately, about half of all wounded seals escape and die later, meaning that the death toll from hunting is at least double. As they’re mostly killed for their fur, many carcasses are dumped in sea as there is no demand for seal meat. Therefore, the EU’s limited ban on seal products contributes to the continuation of these large-scale commercial hunting practices.

Karakul sheep

Karakul sheep are a specific type of sheep from Central Asia. The wool from the adult sheep is quite sturdy and often used to make clothing. The baby sheep, however, are known for their fine soft fur. They keep this fur for three days after birth before getting a coat similar to their parents. Therefore, these baby sheep are often killed when they’re between 1 and 3 days old. Their fur is even softer before they’re born, so sometimes the mothers are killed so the unborn lams can be skinned for their fur. This means two animals are killed for just a small amount of fur. As the lams are still so small, it takes about 30 lams (and 60 lives) just to make one coat of this type of fur.

This fur is sold under various names such as karakul, karakulcha, qaraqul, swakara, Persian lam, persianer, astrakan, breitschwanz and broadtail. It’s mostly used by famous brands, such as Gucci, Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren and Dolce & Gabana.

Red lynx

Fur from the red lynx is very rare and therefore extremely profitable. Sadly, this is the reason why these animals are hunted in the US and Canada, where they live in the wild. They’re mostly hunted with leghold traps, which kill about 50.000 red lynx every year. The lynx often suffer for a long time in these traps before being killed by hunters. There are also other reasons why these leghold traps are extremely cruel, which are mentioned in the paragraph about coyotes. Lynx are often killed by strangulation with a metal wire so as not to damage the fur.

Foxes

Foxes are bred for their fur in fur farms and hunted in the wild as well. In fur farms, they often get very stressed as they’re not domesticated animals. They make repetitive movements and often bite themselves, causing wounds. In some countries, such as Finland, they’re bred to become unnaturally big and overfed in order to produce more fur per animal. Unfortunately, this harms their health and makes their lives even more miserable.

Another problem with foxes in captivity is that spontaneous abortions are a regular occurrence and mothers sometimes kill their babies. Because of these reasons, half of all baby foxes in the fur industry die. Foxes are mostly bred in Scandinavia, North America and China and they’re also hunted in most of these areas. Finland also has a lot of fur farms, where more than 2.5 million foxes are bred and killed every year.

Environmental impact

Fur is regularly promoted as a natural and sustainable product, as opposed to the more unnatural faux fur. However, fur is processed and treated with chemicals before it’s used in clothing or other products. Therefore, it’s definitely not a natural or environmentally friendly product and the fur industry is quite polluting.

The first environmental problems related to fur production involve the breeding and keeping of the animals. Just as with animal agriculture, this requires a lot of land, water, feed, energie and other resources. All these resources can also be used for other purposes, often more efficiently. In addition, keeping millions and millions of animals also produces a lot of pollution, especially manure. When hunting animals for fur, the usage of leg-hold traps contributes to a decrease in biodiversity and threatens endangered species.

After an animal is skinned, the fur has to be treated with a variety of chemicals. If this is not done, the fur simply rots away. Just as with the processing of leather, this involves very poisonous chemicals and heavy metals. These chemicals contribute considerably to water and air pollution. For that reason, in recent years, most fur factories have moved to third world countries, where pollution regulation is much less strict. These chemicals are not only bad for the environment, they’re a threat to human health as well. People working in fur factories are known to often have health problems related to working with these chemicals, including skin and eye problems and an increased cancer risk. The ‘Industrial Pollution Projection System’ of the World Bank analysed which industries cause most heavy metal pollution and concluded that the fur industry belonged in the top 5. The poisonous chemicals can also be damaging to fur wearers. Research in the Netherlands showed that some fur items contain residu from these chemicals that are poisonous and contain carcinogens. Research in Germany and Denmark showed that this was also the case in those country and harmful substances were even found on children’s coats that contained fur.

Compared to other textiles, fur is quite bad for the environment. The production of fur requires much more energy and resources, and causes the emission of more greenhouse gasses and other pollution. Dutch research organisation CE-Delft analysed the environmental impact of the production of mink fur compared to textiles such as cotton, acryl and polyester. Fur scored worse on almost all types of environmental impact. The emission of greenhouse gasses was even more than 10 times higher than those of plant-based textiles. Another study by CE-Delft showed that the production of faux fur is also more environmentally friendly than real fur. Faux fur scored better on all 18 types of environmental impact, often even 3 to 10 times better than real fur. Textiles are more environmentally friendly than faux fur, but if someone wants to wear fur, faux fur is a much more environmentally friendly choice than real fur.

In the UK, 875 million chickens are killed every year for meat. This is not too surprising as 49 percent of all the meat eaten in the UK is poultry. After only 6 weeks chicks are send to the slaughterhouse, with around 2.5 million of them being killed in the UK every day. The short life of these gentle and complex animals is unfortunately filled with suffering. In this blog, we explain how these chicks are raised and slaughtered.

Breeding broiler chicks

Specially selected roosters and chicks are kept seperately as parent animals. While these animals get to live longer than their children, their suffering is equally horrific. They’re bred so as to grow unnaturally fast and big, which is convenient when you want to produce meat fast, but not when the animal is not slaughtered at a young age. These chickens usually die very young when they aren’t send to the slaughterhouse because of health problems caused by their weird bodies. To prevent that, the parent animals are put on a diet to slow down their growth. This means that during their entire life, they’re constantly hungry. After about 17 months, they are send to the slaughterhouse.

The chickens are usually fertilized through artificial insemination. Broilers are bred to make them grow very fast and because of their weirdly shaped bodies, most of them are unable to mate. The eggs are taken away and brought to an incubator, which means the chicks will never meet their mom. When the eggs are hatched, the chicks are taken to poultry farms, where they’ll stay for 6 weeks until it’s time to be slaughtered.

Shortly after being born, the chicks are mutilated. They are debeaked to prevent them from pecking each other. As they have very little space and nothing to do all day, pecking is common which causes wounds. However, debeaking is very painful, as the beak is highly sensitive. According to researchers, chicks suffer chronic pain from debeaking for the rest of their short lives. Unfortunately, debeaking doesn’t prevent the chicks from pecking each other, as they still continue to peck and wound each other with what remains of their beak. In addition, their spurs and comb are sometimes also removed in an attempt to limit wounds.The life of a boiler chick

Broiler chicks change from a tiny little chick into a broiler weighing 2.3 kilo in six weeks. While the chicks may look similar to adult chicken by the time they go to the slaughterhouse, they’re still only chicks. They’re toddlers in an unnatural, deformed body.

Chicks often barely have any space, with 20 chicks sharing one square meter. This means that they each have less than one A4 piece of paper of space. Furthermore, many of these chicks are housed in so-called mega farms. There are even several mega farms in the UK housing more than one million chicks each. I couldn’t find what percentage of chicks are kept in mega farms, but in the Netherlands, half of all broilers are kept in mega farms with over 220.000 chicks each. However, 98 percent of broilers production in the UK is intensive, meaning that farms contain at least 30,000 chicks. This might not be as big as a mega farm, but these are still a huge number of animals per shed. While mega farms are often more efficient, this also increases risks, as a fire or an outbreak of disease can kill hundreds of thousands of animals, which unfortunately is a regular occurrence.

Most chicks never get to go outside. As they’re always indoors, it’s easy to manipulate the light. By keeping the lights on extra long, chicks are stimulated to eat more. By dimming the lights all day, chickens move less, and thus use less energy. Because of this manipulation of light, chicks grow extra fast. Unfortunately, research shows that these practices are not good for animal welfare, as it contributes to health problems and causes additional stress.

As it only takes 6 weeks before the chicks are taken out and brought to the slaughterhouse, farms are not cleaned within those 6 weeks. This means that the chicks are forced to live between their own and each other’s feces for the entire 6 weeks.

Health problems

Many chicks suffer from health problems. Some of these are caused by the selective breeding of chicks to make them grow as fast as possible. Especially towards the end of the 6 weeks, many of the chicks can barely carry their own weight anymore. They often become lame and some are unable to get up.

Other problems are caused by the unnatural and unsuitable environment in which the chicks are kept, in which efficiency and maximizing profits are considered to be more important than animal welfare. For example, as the farms aren’t cleaned during those 6 weeks, more than 80 percent of chicks in the UK have burn wounds from the ammonia from their feces. In addition, the feces also cause respiratory problems and greatly increase the chance of infection, especially as many chicks have open wounds.

Furthermore, the fact that so many chickens are kept together and are forced to live close together helps spread infections and viruses. Therefore, it shouldn’t be surprising that most chickens are contaminated with harmful bacteria such as salmonella, campylobacter and E. Coli.Because of all these health problems, most chicks suffer pain. According to research in the Netherlands, more than half of all chicks were lame, had ulcers or burn wounds on their feet or other painful afflictions. In addition, other ulcers and stomach and intestinal problems are also common. Unfortunately, not much is done to stop this pain. At least in the Netherlands, painkillers aren’t used, as there are no registered painkillers for poultry. There are unregistered painkillers, but it’s unknown how long it takes before these painkillers have left the chicks’ body, which means that when they have been used, the chicks’ meat can’t be sold anymore. Therefore poultry farmers don’t use these painkillers.

To prevent too many chicks dying before reaching the slaughterhouse, broiler chicks receive preventive antibiotics treatment. Currently chicks get about 56 mg of antibiotics per kilogram of body weight in the UK. Nevertheless, millions of chicks still die every year due to heart failure (the heart often can’t keep up with the fast growth), liver and kidney problems, blood poisoning, infections, or because chicks become lame and can no longer reach their food and water, thus dying from hunger and thirst. In the UK, more than 5 percent of chicks die before being transported to the slaughterhouse, about 45 million chicks every year.

The slaughterhouse

After 6 weeks, the chicks are brought to the slaughterhouse. When the birds are caught to prepare them for transport, they regularly break bones. Their legs are already weak from their heavy weight and break easily when they’re picked up. As this is often done fast and quite rough, there is no time to treat them carefully. Wings also regularly break, which means the animals suffer a lot of pain during transportation. Even when they have not been wounded, the transportation is very stressful for the chicks and usually 7000 to 8000 chicks are crammed together in one truck.

At the slaughterhouse, the chicks are hung by their feet, which is very stressful and threatening for them according to experts. They are then dragged through a water bath in which they get an electric shock. Unfortunately, it regularly happens that chicks are not stunned as they move too much and their head doesn’t touch the water. Next, their throat is slit by automatic blades. Then they get to a checker who is supposed to manually slit the throat of those chicks that have missed the automatic blades. However, as this person has 150 chicks passing by him/her every minute, it regularly happens that chicks are still alive and sometimes also haven’t been stunned when they reach the defeathering tanks. The defeathering tank is the next part in the slaughter process, which is a tank with scalding-hot water to loosen the feathers. Time and again, research in the UK, the Netherlands and other part of the world shows that many things go wrong in slaughterhouses causing unnecessary suffering, mostly because chicks are processed at such a high speed.

Other types of chicken

While the majority of broilers are raised in the way described above, there are also some chicks that are raised in farms with an outdoor part. However, most of these chickens still have similar problems and their slaughter is the same. In addition, some consider organic poultry to be better, but this just means the birds get organic feed and slightly more space and access to an outdoor part. Many of the health problems still occur in organic or other types of ‘free-range’ broilers and while they are usually slightly slower growing breeds, they aren’t normal chicken breeds either. They still live in unnatural conditions and die an often painful death when they are only a few weeks of age.

Unhygienic

The enormous amounts of unnecessary suffering behind chicken production should be enough to never buy it again. Unfortunately, there are many more problems with this industry. One of them is that its products are also quite unhygienic and a threat to human health.

Research shows that a lot of chicken meat contains feces, organ matter or dirt. While this might not immediately threaten your health, this is pretty gross and completely not necessary. However, as most slaughterhouses process around 10.000 chicks every hour, this should not be too surprising. According to research, about 92 percent of the chicken meat for sale is contaminated with poop. Furthermore, reports from slaughterhouse workers and research show that meat that has fallen on the floor is put with the ‘normal’ meat, workers don’t always work hygienically, and facilities are often not cleaned to the compulsory standards.

In addition, chicken also often contains harmful bacteria. This should also not be surprising as most chicks are contaminated with a variety of different harmful bacteria. Therefore, chicken is a major cause of food poisoning. According to one study 40 percent of chicken in the UK contained either salmonella or campylobacter food poisoning bugs. Another study showed that almost 75 percent of chicken at supermarkets was contaminated with campylobacter. A quarter of a million people in the UK get ill every year from eating contaminated chicken. While the risk of getting ill is small when the meat is cooked thoroughly, you should still ask yourself if you even want to eat meat that is contaminated with harmful bacteria and poop in the first place.

Antibiotic resistance is a huge threat to human health worldwide. According to the World Health Organization it’s even one of the biggest threats. That’s why in recent years an effort has begun to try to reduce antibiotics use in an attempt to limit the spread of antibiotic resistance. In this blog, we discuss what this means and what the role of animal agriculture is creating this problem.

What is antibiotic resistance?

Bacteria are tiny organisms that multiply quickly. They live all around us, but also inside our bodies. That is a good thing, as the bacteria in our intestines help us to digest food. Unfortunately, bacteria can also cause infections, such as bladder infection. To heal these infections, an antibiotics treatment is often prescribed. The antibiotics kill or slow down the bacteria, so that your body can heal again. Usually our bodies can heal without the use of antibiotics as well, but sometimes a body can be weakened and not resistant enough. That is why in the past, many people died from infections. Since the discovery of penicillin and later other types of antibiotics, the number of people dying from infections has been reduced drastically. Especially for severe infections, such as lung infections or blood poisoning, antibiotics are almost always needed to recover.

It’s probably clear by now that antibiotics are very useful and important. That is why antibiotics usage has greatly increased since its discovery. While this has saved many lives, this also causes problems. Because antibiotics are used more, bacteria also have a chance to get used to them, and after a while that can result in them no longer being sensitive to one or several types of antibiotics, also called antibiotic resistance. When that happens, bacteria can protect themselves against antibiotics and infections can no longer be cured with these antibiotics. If these resistant bacteria spread widely, it is possible that we won’t be able to cure bacterial infections in the future, as bacteria would have become resistant to all types of available antibiotics. Diseases that can be cured quite easily at the moment could then become impossible to treat. That is why it is so important to prevent antibiotic resistance as much as possible.

The solution?

It is not possible to prevent bacteria from becoming resistant completely. What does help is to limit antibiotics usage as much as possible, so bacteria have less chances to get familiar with it and are less likely to become resistant to it. This seems to work, because in countries with a high level of antibiotics usage, such as Southern Europe, problems with antibiotics resistant are more common. To limit the risk, many countries have taken measures to limit antibiotics usage in recent years.

The role of animal agriculture

Antibiotics usage in animal agriculture contributes to antibiotic resistance. Unfortunately, intensive animal agriculture only works with a relatively high supply of antibiotics. Animals usually live so close together that wounds are normal (with a chance of infection) and illnesses spread easily. Antibiotics can limit the occurance of these problems. However, the huge amounts of antibiotics given to animals do not only endanger the lives of animals (in the case of antibiotic resistance), but also human health. Bacteria that have become resistant near or inside the animals can spread outside of the farm and pose a risk to humans. While it is possible to use less antibiotics, as is the case at organic farms, that creates problems as well. As these animals usually have an outdoor space, illnesses and infections can more easily enter the farm from the outside and diseases and resistant bacteria can leave the farm more easily too. Resistant bacteria don’t just spread from humans and animals, but occur in food, such as meat, as well.

As animal agriculture plays a considerable role in the threat of antibiotic resistance, there have also been attempts to limit antibiotics usage at farms. For example, in many countries, it’s no longer allowed to give animals antibiotics to help them grow faster. However, antibiotics remain relatively cheap and do encourage growth, so researchers suspect that some companies might still be using more antibiotics than necessary for this reason. However, whether to stimulate growth or to limit diseases, antibiotics usage on farm animals is still a lot. Even in the Netherlands, where animals get less antibiotics than in most other EU countries, animals receive far more antibiotics treatments than humans. For example, broilers get almost three times as many treatments and calfs even get six times as many. Research shows that much less antibiotics would be needed when animals would get better food, when their living environment is cleaner and the air more ventilated, and when they are less stressed. This reduces the chance of infections so less antibiotics would be needed.

Animal agriculture and MRSA bacteria and E. coli bacteria

One of the most well-known resistant bacteria is MRSA, that occurs in humans as well as animals. This type of bacteria is resistant to beta-lactam antibiotics. In the Netherlands, it has been found at 60 percent of pig farms, 90 percent of veal farms and 35 percent of chicken farms. About 10 to 15 percent of MRSA infections in the Netherlands originate from animal agriculture. In addition, research has shown that 60 percent of livestock farmers carries resistant bacteria en 10 percent of their relatives. That’s why animal related MRSA infections are more common among people working in animal agriculture.

Another example of antibiotic resistance are E. coli bacteria. Especially among chickens, this has become a huge problem, a form of E. coli that is resistant against three important types of antibiotics has been found in 60 percent of chickens in animal agriculture.

Antibiotic resistance in the environment

Resistant bacteria do not only live in animals and food. They can also be found in the environment (water, soil, air). This is unavoidable, but as antibiotics end up in the environment, more bacteria can become resistant. When several types of them come together, this can create new combinations of resistance. The spread of antibiotics is mainly caused by waste water containing antibiotics from humans and animals. 40 to 90 percent of antibiotics are excreted so this should not be surprising. This way, not only antibiotics, but also resistant bacteria end up in animal manure. For example, research has shown that in the Netherlands, 75 percent of calf manure contains resistant bacteria. By using this manure as fertilizer or dumping it somewhere, these antibiotics and resistant bacteria end up in the environment. As not much research has been done, we don’t know what influence this has on the soil and the amount of antibiotics and resistant bacteria in plants. This way, resistant bacteria can end up in plant-based food and this only increases the threat to human health. Therefore, manure and the way it is processed play an important role in creating antibiotic resistance. In some parts of the world, animal manure is the main cause of antibiotic resistance.